The Stanley Cup: Still looking great at 123

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The Stanley Cup on the High Roller on Tuesday, June 23, 2015, at the Linq Promenade.

Tue, Jun 21, 2016 (2:36 p.m.)

2014 NHL Awards at Wynn

Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins with his Ted Lindsay, Art Ross and Hart Memorial trophies at the 2014 NHL Awards in Encore Theater on Tuesday, June 24, 2014, at Wynn Las Vegas. Launch slideshow »
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The legendary Stanley Cup is shown on display at the main entrance of the Hard Rock Hotel on Monday, June 20, 2016, in Las Vegas.

At the after-party of the 2009 NHL Awards at Palms Pool, a fan who had succumbed to revelry leapt into the water and began swimming toward an object standing on a platform in the middle of the water.

No ordinary object, this. It was the Stanley Cup.

And that individual had about as much of a chance of making it to that trophy as the Toronto Maple Leafs have of winning the Cup next season (and, yes, I had to look up the team with the worst record and lowest point total from last season for that metaphor).

“People, sometimes, become very brave during these party events, especially when you have the Cup nearby,” says Philip Pritchard, curator of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto and the man dubbed “Keeper of the Cup.” “People become very brave, but, in that case, the lifeguards grabbed him.”

I think the penalty in this case was two hours for buffoonery …

Anyway, whenever the Cup is on display, it has a person assigned to it as a sort of Secret Service Agent to ensure that nothing weird happens. Pritchard always handles the Cup with white gloves but is fine with picking up the trophy and staging posed pics, as he did Monday afternoon at the Hard Rock Hotel entrance.

The Cup was on display there this week and will be moved into the Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel — among 20 NHL trophies — for Wednesday afternoon’s NHL Awards broadcast at 4 p.m. on NBCSN.

Most relevant among the day’s activities is the expected announcement from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on Wednesday afternoon from Encore Las Vegas that the league plans to expand to Las Vegas for the 2017-2018 season.

The league’s affiliation with the city has long been established with the awards. It premiered in Las Vegas at Pearl at the Palms in 2009 (same year the aquatic daredevil tried to use the Cup as a pool toy), then moved to Wynn/Encore and finally to the Hard Rock last year.

“We’ve been here for a few years now, at different hotels, and have a following here that realizes this is a very personable sport with fans who are very passionate about it,” Pritchard says. “I think the cool thing is the reactions you get when we put the Cup on display.

“The fact that it’s 123 years old, and it still looks stunning, with every team and every player listed … I mean, if it could talk, what it would say would be a bestseller.”

No doubt a chapter would be set aside for Las Vegas, starting with a pool party at the Palms.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow Kats on Instagram at Instagram.com/JohnnyKats1.

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